Erica

My friend Erica is in the hospital. She suffered an asthma attack and passed out. Her husband gave her CPR until the ambulance got there, but her brain had already swelled and she was in a coma. She's been in a coma ever since Sunday and they are moving her to John Hopkins Hospital to get a second opinion on a not so great diagnosis of brain damage and swelling that won't go down. She can't breathe on her own.
The last time I saw Erica she was full of life and snapping photos of me at my wedding. It seems so unreal that she's lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life. Josh, her husband, called me today. He said that she seems like she can hear you when you talk to her and thinks she wants to come back. I think she wants to come back too. It just doesn't seem fair to her 5 children and all of the people that she has yet to meet.
Erica is a very talented photographer and artist and one of the most fearless people that I've ever met. Earlier this year I got to tattoo her and we got matching tattoos at the Baltimore Tattoo Convention. I hope that I can see her again.

Honeymoon N'at

So I'm back from my honeymoon. Key West is a wonderful little town and we had a great time. It is very darling and relaxed. The weather is amazing and the houses and atmosphere are fantastic. Mallory Square and the super tourist areas aren't so bad either. But after 5 days of our "relaxing" honeymoon (that means no boat tours or swimming with dolphins or voyages to the dry tortugas) we were both ready to come home! The highlight of the trip was the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. It was amazingly beautiful and the ocean was great. I snorkeled and we read and sunned ourselves for hours. Renting chairs and umbrellas cost you $30 and snorkeling equipment cost you another $10. With snacks and admission a day at the beach ends up costing you $50. Vacation is expensive!
We found ourselves really scrimping as the days went on and ended up eating at the awesome and affordable El Siboney many times. I've never really had Cuban food. They give you a basket of the most delicious buttered hot bread as soon as you sit down. I got a half of a garlic roasted chicken with yellow rice, black beans, and friend plaintains the first night. It was amazing and I couldn't eat it all. I would say that was my favorite meal of the trip.

Acceptance Was the Answer to All of My Problems

Lately I've been feeling a stifled by my own denial. I go through phases where I just simply ignore what I'm feeling. It's usually when something stressful like change or death is happening, and it's rooted in fear. I hold onto this denial, and I go through the motions of everyday and manage to be alright, but there is just this sneaking feeling that I'm ignoring something. That what is going on isn't exactly all there, there is something else happening and that something else is making me feel dull and less fulfilled by my daily life. Now the only reason that I know this is dull and lifeless is because I know what it feels like to be centered and fulfilled, we call it "spiritually fit". So anyway, the way that I figure all of this out, is really embarrassing and uncomfortable. The past couple of times this has happened I usually take it all internally, I hate my body I hate my hair, and it's not a normal amount of dissatisfaction, but charged with extra emotion. So I call someone and I tell them about it, and usually this person is someone that tells me the truth no matter what. She asks what is really going on, and I blurt out something completely unrelated but what is underneath all of the self loathing that I've been hanging onto. I deny myself in other ways when this happens. There is resistance concerning things that I normally enjoy. I don't want to do them. Going to meetings, socializing, reading, drawing, personal things aren't so appealing and there's just a sort of haze over everything. So when I finally connect it all and realize it's what I haven't been doing that's the problem, and that I just have to maintain a few things to keep it from happening again, I begin to learn that I've gotta be uncomfortable, feel the pain, cry about my hair, sound stupid on the phone, NOT KNOW EVERYTHING, so that I can learn. It's not very fun when it's happening, but I feel better when I can see through it and be grateful for it. Because I know how to get to the solution now.

I've been watching Mad Men and on the second disc series there is a five part documentary about feminism included with each disc. I just watched the first part and it really made me realize just how lucky I am to not be completely encouraged in every way to be a wife and a mother. Even though I want those things, it wasn't something that I felt I had to do as a last resort to get out of my parents house, and for survival. I hope that I can remember that the next time I get frustrated with my life. In unpacking from the move, I ran across one of my first college papers that I wrote in 2002 and it's titled "The Ignorance Of Feminism Today". I can't wait to read it.

christmas is a comin' and it's a comin'

we had a little snow day yesterday. jason's appointment was from west virginia and he couldn't make it, so we didn't go into the shop yesterday. i made pancakes and bacon for us and my brother and his gf julie came over, they live really close by. then we got all bundled up and walked to giant eagle to get some stuff for dinner and for the cookies i was going to bake.

emo shit will try to TRICK YOU!

emotions are so crazy. floating around unwarranted and mostly pretty irrational (well mine are anyways) for us to sort through and make sense of. i used to act on my insane emotions all of the time, in fact i trusted them with a lot of decisions that i made in my life with regard to relationships and how i took care of myself. acting on my emotions got me nowhere but medicated and depressed and going nowhere. i'd love to say that i don't do that anymore, but it's simply not true. i absolutely react on my emotions and make bad decisions based on them. the difference now is that i have an awareness that my emotions are not to always be trusted. what i do differently now is try to wrangle those motherfuckers and let them go without causing too much damage to myself and those around me. that's half the battle in my everyday life these days. but let me tell you, i've got the right support and the right resources now. that is something i'm positive of. and for me not to utilize those resources would be ignorant on my part.
emotional sobriety is one of the biggest challenges in my newly sober life. i've started meditating, being more serious about asking for humble direction from a god of my understanding, and doing a weekly self inventory with a therapist, and keeping journals for all of the rest of that emotional crap that's left over trying to TRICK ME!
BUT a little bird in the form of a big blue book told me that prayer, meditation, and self inventory builds an unshakeable foundation for life. and i believe it. my shit will someday be UNSHAKEABLE. watch the fuck out! :)

brogs are back!

i recently disabled viewing of this blog as per radical suggestion from a trusted friend, but then i thought better of it. mostly because i've read that i am to avoid hysterical advice. i'm not afraid of the internet!

things of note that have changed and that are important to me recently are as follows and then i've gotta go to work:

1. i fuckin' tattoo! it's so weird. i was tattooing this guy tom (who is going to end of sleeved by me if he keeps coming back like he has) and i had a moment where i was just amazed that i was doing a tattoo on some guy that i drew that he was going to pay me for. it just seems like it shouldn't be allowed. that it should be against the law or something.

2. i tattooed at the pgh meeting of the marked. erich foster from rise above tattoo in buffalo new york gave me the sweetest cry baby head in the ditch of my knee. i offered to tattoo him because he wouldn't take any money and he accepted! i was a ball of nerves, but i put a solid tattoo on him even though it was only about the size of a quarter.

3. i've been painting a lot and have been so much more motivated and satisfied with what i've been doing lately. i've been told that painting is like tattooing's little sister and that one helps the other. i've been noticing that i've been growing leaps and bounds with every painting and every tattoo that i do.

4. my schedule at starbucks is finally set and i work three days have one day off totally and tattoo three days. it's absolutely perfect and i couldn't have asked for a better schedule.

got my hair did and it's red. i'm not sure how i feel about it. i think i'm over dying my hair. i'm ok with it now, but i don't think i'll be doing it in the future. i also quit smoking on aug 20th! cold turkey and haven't picked one up no matter what since. unfortunately i've gained 7.4 lbs since then, but i'm back on track and hopefully that won't continue.

UPDATE

i figured i'd update since it's been awhile. i've been keeping a personal writing journal lately and that's been doing me good for awhile. the past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy for me emotionally. i'm finally off of that awful medication effexor xr. if anyone reading this is thinking of getting on this medication, i'd really think about the long term consequences. it's really hard to get off of this stuff. like i've read online message boards and people can't seem to deal with the awful side effects (including what has been adorably named "brain zaps" EW!) and never get off the medication. i'm talking like years and years on this stuff. thankfully i was weaned over a period of about a year and i think getting through early sobriety and having support from my sponsor and others really helped me through it. there were times when i wanted to cry for no reason and the irritability and agitation was just fucking awful. i couldn't believe anything i was thinking at times and i had to just trust that i wouldn't feel this way forever. it's day 19 without it and i can honestly say that i feel almost completely normal, but that didn't start until about two weeks into it. i truly feel free being almost completely free of any substance to help me deal with my life and smoking is next on the list. it's pretty incredible.

we got a new supervisor at starbucks, janice had to go to another store to help out because they didn't have a manager for awhile. i had been working A TON of hours the couple of weeks that she wasn't there and it sucked. mostly because i couldn't really tattoo that much and that's what i want to do and get better at. but since alicia has been there i've had a lot more time to be at the shop, draw, and tattoo. i'm getting better the more and more i work at it and it seems like all of the things that jason's been telling me that are floating around in my head are coming together more and more every time i do a tattoo. it's a slow process but i'm patient and am lucky enough to have the best teacher anyone could ever have. i recently tattooed a few of the girls that i work with at starbucks, a little coffee cup. it's our little club tattoo. the one barista wendy had never been tattooed, and i definitely see more tattoos in her future. a lot of the girls are getting really into it, which is really cool. i think jason and i have tattooed just about everyone there.

in tattoo news, i got my knee tattooed my krooked ken, jason and i did a mini sailor jerry tattoo on each other for our anniversary, and my traditional leg is slowly filling up. todd noble gave me a tattoo at the new york tattoo convention, and i've got an appointment with jared russell at black star tattoo in august. we're going to the seattle tattoo convention just before that also. lots of summer tattoo plans! i love it.

in much bigger news, black cat tattoos with no longer be at 314 north craig street. we're moving into the most perfect location ever, and we're so so excited about it. it's pretty fucking perfect and it's kind of unbelievable. anyway i'm going to go get a shower and head to work.